Why are retro games better than new games?

Less padding

>>2836614
nostalgia

Because it was about the games- not the self-serving industry of parasites who publishes them.

I can't buy new Hudson / Konami / Irem / Masaya games, so retro is my only option.

japanese game design prevalence in older games

>>2836614
Older games weren't concerned about appealing to a wider audience that they do now; they were made with gamers in mind, which at the time were mostly males in their teens to early adults, and were generally more challenging and rewarding to play.

>>2836614
Because it was just games. Now it seems that everything is about an "experience". You have to feel it like you're there. There's no room for imagination like if you compare to read a book and watch the movie based on this book. It's fun, but it's not the same thing

>>2836647
I agree, and adding to this I feel like more risks were taken on making creative and unique games instead of today's major games that play it safe due to the amount of money involved. A lot of shitty games came out from this but so did many great ones which I feel is better than the generic mediocre games today.

I don't think I agree that retro games are "better". the whole industry is just completely different now but I don't think it's better or worse. sure there is a larger pool of shit to swim through now, but there are still plenty of great games released.. and that's coming from a 35yo who plays mostly older games (my newest console is a PS2)

>>2836614
They're not. But they're not worse either. They're games. There are good ones and bad ones. There always have been and always will be.

>>2836634
How would you know? Did your dad work for Nintendo also?

>>2836639
>Hudson
>Konami
>irem
>masaya

At least there's good ol' turbografx

because they (older games) couldn't rely on badass graphics as a crutch.

>>2836665
you couldn't have said more of a whole lot of nothing even if you tried.

>>2836814
What are you expecting? A dumb extreme one-sided opinion?
Or better yet, a nostalgia based one

>>2836614
I blame muh cinematic experience

Because back in the day video games were made for people who like video games.

Then video games want mainstream and so now video games are made for the lowest common denominator.

That's really about it. That doesn't mean they don't still make good games, but you're never going to see a AAA game that is made for people who actually like video games again. Nobody is going to spend millions upon millions developing a game for a small demographic with high standards when they can spend it developing a game for a large demographic with low standard.

>>2836614
Because games used to be more than CALL OF US MILITARY RECRUITMENT TOOL

>>2836614
bigger pixels

>>2836632
>why are old films better than new films
>nostalgia
>why are old books better than new books
>nostalgia

This is how retarded you sound.

>>2836614
They aren't really. But if you work from the assumption that most games in general are boring,buggy pieces of shit, and there are maybe 2-4 good games a year, there are way more of those games existing prior to the last 10 years or so than the 20-40 there have been in that time.

You can actually play as soon as you turn the game on and sit in front of it

To play something from the last 5 years you need to clear up an entire afternoon. You need to update every single component involved, see the unskippable intro, go through the tutorials, then tolerate the first two or three stages/chapters where you only have a fraction of the game you'll have later on, and maybe by the second hour you'll be in the meat of the game finally.

>>2836962
Pretty much this, the stragihtforward part of old games is what make them much more enjoyable to me The last time i tried an AAA modern game i dropped it because of the longass intro. And in something like Shovel Knight i avoided all NPCs and upgrade shit to beat the game just like that.

>>2836951
Your argument implies video games are art just like books and films, which they are not.

It was an age of unparalleled experimentation and innovation.

No achievements for one thing.

>>2836969
>Hundreds of artists working together to create something
>Somehow it's not art.

Okay internet, you're so wise.

>>2837008
>hundreds of artists make a commercial product
>a single artist puts his soul to create a work of art
The difference is astronomical.

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>>2836679

>>2837013

Bullshit. All art is subjective. If I say a rotten carcass is art, then it is.

>>2836643
fuck no. If anything the japan focus on here is occasionally very annoying. Probably due to consoles. On better platforms you also find a nice mix of designers and developers from unbombed countries

>>2837019
You can say it's art, but you have to explain what makes it art.

"subjective" is the scapegoat utilized by anti-intellectuals who never read a single books on art and aesthetics in their whole life (ie music hipsters, gaymurrs).

>>2837025
>books
*book

>>2836647
Back then games actually covered a wider range of genres than they do now, including games that are clearly aimed at young kids (edutainment) or families (various board game variants).
The "more challenging and rewarding" statement hints at the real drive, but then heads down a one track approach to games. It's not so much the challenge, it's that the games (and developers) treat the players like human beings, like people willing to learn, able to understand, and capable of making complex decisions. That may have lead to a bit of a challenge. The sense of reward comes on its own. With modern games, they're tightly crafted towardss the "experience", which is just bullshit bingo for smoothing out any learning bumps with tutorials, and generally keeping the unfamiliarity of games low. Don't expect the player to think, just expect them to consume, and ultimately pay lots of money

>>2836798
but they did. A lot of games were pushing visuals to the very edge of the abilities of the hardware, and beyond. Just like modern tech heads drool at the latest pixel shading fragments, tech heads used to drool at the scaling capabilities of sprite hardware

>>2837013
So is the Sistine chapel not art? A team of artists worked on it to make money.

>>2837013
>art
>not commercial
lol. I mean i kinda agree that vidya isn't art, but this argument is garbage.

>>2837025
"Objectivity" is as much as an scapegoat for pseudo-authorities to impose their vision of what it's art. The definition of art is arbitrary as fuck at this point, it's better to use terms like "fine art" to refer to certain form of art.

>>2837034
It is art because people are capable of discussing it's aesthetics instead of going "hurrr it is subjective therefore it be art". Video games (both actual games and modern hipster "art" games) have art potential but so far their community has failed to elaborate what makes them art, besides repeating the most basic principles.

>>2836902
Because people who liked video games were into barbie, driving their ford, managing golf clubs, or playing ancient board games. No, they were as widely aimed as now.

the lowest common denominator is a fictional entity. A walking and talking wallet with zero brain cells. It's not aimed at human beings anymore. That's the problem.

AAA games have an extra problem they didn't have in the past. They're excessively expensive to make. For some studios an AAA game is an existential risk. So in order to manage that risk, they do something that's not risky. An established genre (third person sandbox with cutscenes), established controls, familiar production mechanisms (lots of cutscenes, they're like making a movie, we know how to do that), and that's it. AAA does not make games any longer. They're just trying to make money, in a very odd way.
The millions and millions you mention are a red herring. Making games nowadays is cheaper than it ever was. The IDEs are practically free, and super powerful. All the documention of the IDEs and the free libraries, is extremely thorough. Tutorials exist on every corner. There's no barrier to publishing anymore, you can put up your game on a website and make some money right away. The millions and millions only matter when you try to do a triple A game. But then you're not interested in making games, you're interested in making money. Games don't pay well.

the large demographic you mention doesn't have a low standard, at all. They're hellishly picky on visuals and "immersion". They just don't know what a good game is like, because they lack the reference to compare them to.

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>>2837041
Discussing art is cancerous belly button gazing. No one gives a shit except the stupid fucking hipsters and art faggots you hate so much.

It doesn't need to be discussed to be art, it just is, man.

>>2836962
You nailed the reason why my most played game at the moment is OutRun. I can enjoy a fantastic game in short bursts, and still improve in it. I don't need to invest myself in it, I can invest myself in it, if I want to.
Oddly enough, it's one of the reasons I don't play /vr/pgs. Even the old ones require so much time investment, and context knowledge, often in form of hand drawn maps and lots of note-taking, that it gets annoying again.
That said, your comment on the many intro screens and tutorials, is very very true. The problem with tutorials comes on the second playthrough. You either need to actively bypass something, knowing you basically cut important exposition; or you need to make a player, that knows the controls in and out, suffer through a painstakingly slow and longwindet explanation. Old games had a fixed difficulty, fixed interface, and a manual. New players could go through the game while reading the manual, make a mistake, start over, learn, etc. While old players got the real game from the very first moment. "Offloading" the tutorial into the manual is an actual feature, not just a necessity of space and hardware constraints.

>>2837039
Commercial works can be elevated into art status. Commercial works themselves aren't art however.

>>2837054
Your meme picture and meme argument are precisely the community I was referring to in my post. The reason video games in their current state can't become art.

There's a ton of debates and arguments arguing the point of view presented in your screenshit pic, by the way. Avant-garde art has subjected itself to plenty of attacks, even more so in recent times... but obviously passive-aggressive meme posting is more suitable for anti-intellectual minds who've never bothered reading a single aesthetics book.

>>2837074
>screenshit
*screenshot

Funny that.

>>2837074
You never defined art, so I felt I was under no obligation to explicitly state it.

I said essentially art is 'the stuff that artisans make'.

You said nothing is art until art fags talk about it. What a pile of shit that is. Anita sarkesian has validated video games as an art form by your definition because she won't fucking shutup about shit.

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>>2837074

Holy fucking shit you are a special kind of snowflake, you know that?

>>2837081
Art has no clear definition. It's just there so people could discuss it.

I'm shooting myself in the foot by desiring quality discussion on 4chan and other forums of such ilk. As such I'm just shitposting.

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>>2837086
>Art has no clear definition. It's just there so people could discuss it.
So video games are already art by your definition because we are fucking discussing it, jesus Christ dude, you did shoot yourself in the foot. Your whole shitpost argument self destructed.

>>2837093
Nah they're not because no one in this thread has so far managed to make a compelling argument to why they're art.

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It's very simple really.

We've had more time to sort out the chaff and keep the gems, and have forgotten how bad shit used to actually be.

In 10-20 years, they'll be talking about how amazing the games coming out now were.

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>>2837094
Dude, there was a huge fucking crisis in art because photography was better than artists at what they did 90% of the time. So artists starting being like 'whoa dude what is art' and then they put a canvas painted white up in an art gallery and made a million dollars.

Your criterion for art doesn't have enough information to affirmatively describe art.
All I can infer is that you want me to affirm the consequent which is sloppy.

If something causes discussion about itself, then it is art.

We are discussing a thing, videogames, even in regard to art, which is as apt a discussion to have about art as your can have..

Therefore videogames are art, because we are discussing them.

>>2837102
So, I can shed some light on this because I'm an illustrator.

Illustrators are the last vestige of the old art world, and we fucking hate fine artists. With a fiery passion. They put no effort and skill into what they do and are easily considered great. We spend years studying how to draw accurately and deliberately, to make deliberate choices to convey certain things, and then some fucker just comes in and doodles some trippy shit that strokes off the masses enough that one will pay him thousands of dollars for it.

Anyway, modern art really seemed more like a product of art getting too good. We have the entire body of learning of the western world now, I can casually draw in ways that would annihilate many famous historical artists from before the sixteenth century.

But art goes in cycles. It always, always goes from
>Perfection and Balance
>Emotion and Action
>Abstraction and Absurdity.

This has happened time and time again. It happened to the Greeks, it happened during the Renaissance, and it's happened again.

>>2837102
Some people don't want to accept video games as art because of their straight-forward nature where you take the role of an avatar going after a clear goal. They desire something more abstract, which brings us to indie games and their kitsch. The general consensus is that video games are an unrealized potential that combines all preceding art forms. Perhaps when virtual reality gaming (if you'll even call it gaming) becomes a more open thing and offers us the opportunity to contrast and compare all the various video games available at this precise moment, people will become more open to current video games and explore their concept in a more unbiased manner.

>Your criterion for art doesn't have enough information to affirmatively describe art.
Yeah, I've never said my definition of art. Cause I'm just shitposting lol.

Anyway, cheers for lighting up my murky morning anons.

>>2837112
That's a good way to put it actually.

>>2836614
I don't think new game are worse I just don't have the patience to keep sitting through one hour tutorials that treats me like a fucking moron every time I play a new game anymore.

>>2837021
Western game development has also been shoddy and bugged with imprecise gameplay when compared to japanese counterparts, for the most part. Also the whole trend of 'open-world' with nothing in them is a very western trend. Also western devs really push the whole lack of gameplay style adventure games with point + click and shitty cinematic style games.

give me tight arcade style japanese developed games and japanese rpg and strategy games.

>blah blah blah uneducated crap from kids
Because in the mid-90s, gaming went from being about games to selling shit to the masses. It was pre-crash Atari all over again except too many non-gaming idiots that thought garbage like Mario 64 was actually good bought shit games were feeding this bullshit for it to stop, and now gaming is basically dead.

>>2837116
>The general consensus is that video games are an unrealized potential that combines all preceding art forms.

Video games basically come in two types: puzzle games, sport games, and games where you take on the role of an avatar. Puzzle games are not art, any more than sudoku or a cross word puzzle are art. Sports games are not art, they're a sport that's entirely hand based.

Avatar games, though? Those things are art.
They're basically stage plays where an audience member gets to participate, not unlike in the play Peter Pan where the audience is asked to clap if they believe in fairies, except much more involved. You have all the elements a stage play would have: a script, actors, music, a stage, etc. The key difference is that a single audience member is invited to participate by taking on one of the roles in the story. The only thing separating cinema and theater from video games is the amount of participation involved and the technologies used.

>>2837157
three types*

Maybe more. It's late, I'm tired, and I don't feel like extrapolating whether every damn genre of video game is just a game or a piece of art.

>>2837026
you thought that was witty, but you only proved his point you have nothing of value to bring to the argument.

>>2836962
You're not completely right there. Portable games didn't change much in that regard. I haven't updated my ps3 in years either (no wifi) and haven't had issues.

Besides, its not like you could play a game like ffvi for 'only an hour'.

>>2837013
Your shitposting is art

>>2837163
He's right though, "subjective" is a shitty argument.

>>2836614
They are not,they are each of its own.
There are good modern games and there are good old games.
Don't be autistic shit that wants to start flame war.

no dlc haha

>>2837170
>>2837174
Videogames are an art, but that mouldy sandwhich next to your computer is also a piece of art because I said it is.

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>>2837197
Damnit anon, now I'm hungry.

Because was made to be fun and playable from everyone. The story was not so important and the computers power was limitated.

>>2837208
'Inferior equipment' is not really a good argument though. And games now appeal to a wider audience than back then, since more people actually play them. GTA V sold 5 million units in the UK alone, and ten times that worldwide - a game like Sonic 2 only sold like six million, and a SNES blockbuster like Super Mario World only sold a third of that.

Games are much more accessible today than they are back then, in part because they try to appeal more to the 'smartphone generation', which is a fundamental weakness of humans that's easy to capitalize on.

>>2837217
Meant to say that SMW only sold a third of what GTA V sold worldwide, not a third of six million. That'd be crazy.

Why is trolling /vr/ so dammit easy?

Here's one way money has ruined games.

Check out this trailer for a WWII game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ95G9I6GMQ

Not one Swastika in sight. Can't lose that precious German market.

>>2837248
But that's modern day society and the whole lets try not to offend anyone.
Its not the fucking game that is doing it wrong its the society.

>>2837248
Except that's always been extremely common in WW2 games.

To all the people saying that old games are not better (on average I suppose), can you tell me even 10 great games released in the last 3 years that compare to the great classics of the 90s/early00s?

I seriously can only think of very few games that will probably become classics. Games and gaming related media is a fucking joke nowadays, it's ridicolous.
They forgot what made games great, concepts about good game design are totally changed for the worse, games are getting something they aren't meant to be.
It's fucking sad.

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>>2837282
Nah, it's just you growing up anon. Games aren't getting worse. You're just getting older and hence, lesser able to immerse yourself into games as your younger self could.
There are more games available now than ever, be it AAA titles or indie, what ever crazy stuff you might think 'd be cool to have a game about, you can be pretty sure it's available at steam, with the easy click of a mousebutton.

>>2837282
That's not really a fair comparison. You're asking for ten games out of a three year span that are supposed to compare to the best of the best of a span of around fifteen-years.

That said, games like The Last of Us, GTA V, Minecraft, Fallout 3/NV/4, Skyrim, Diablo III are all games that are likely to be considered classics in a few years. Some of these games are really good, some aren't great, but you can say the same about the usual 'classic' games everyone keeps talking about.

I prefer retro games 99% of the time to shitty modern games, but I must admit some of them are hard on the eyes now, at least the early 3D graphic attempt games. 2D still looks good. But it's hard to even know what I'm looking at anymore with certain retro 3D games. And 4:3 makes me feel like I'm cross-eyed now. Maybe my eyes are just going to shit

>>2837248

>I never heard about SNES Wolfenstein

>>2837351
>SNES Wolfenstein

And nothing of value was lost.

>>2837329

>one day people will consider Minecraft as a classic

It scares me. I don't like all the games you listed but I can see people liking them because they have an objective and play like a videogame. MC is just... I can't even define what that game is and what kind of deal its creator have done with Satan to make it a huge marketing success. Sorry about the non-vr post, but this "game" particularly intrigues me a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRdcptG365I

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>>2837354

>>2836614
Modern games are better on average than retro games, and the best modern games are better than the best retro games. Or at least, it was the case that the average was better until Steam decided to put out 500,000 shitty indie games that only sell 2,000 copies at best anyway. There are still plenty of good modern indie games, like Binding of Isaac.

Yep

Retro games had

>challenge and reward
>color
>imagination

Not to say there aren't bad retro games and good modern games (The Wonderful 101 is probably in my top 10 games of all time), but even good modern games are firmly routed in the retro style of challenge and the satisfaction of overcoming that challenge. Stuff like the Souls games and most Platinum stuff.

>>2837359
>good modern indie games
>isaac

NOPE.jpeg

Edmund took a decent concept and raped it. He has no idea what makes the game fun, and instead bloats the item pools with items that are flat out -bad- or -downgrades-.

He has no idea how to make the game challenging, so he inflates enemy HP and makes enemies spawn other enemies.

If you don't get a reasonable DPS increase on the first floor and get bandage man, good fucking luck. Likewise, if you simply get no damage ups you're fucked, because you're going to take a million years to kill anything.

>>2837357
Minecraft is pretty atmospheric. It has fantastic aesthetics, maybe some of the best I've seen out of any modern game with regards to color. It's all in all a very vast and open world that feels like it's yours.

However, I don't personally like it because digging all day and building things is a fun novelty for me for about an hour or two, maybe even a few days, but after that it feels like work. The internet overuses this word, but it literally feels too autistic. Same with Terraria, Starbound and the rest of them, which I also own. I would enjoy it so much more if it was more of a Quest 64-like RPG.

>>2837365
It does seem like the game fucks you at times and there are plenty of dumb items but at least you can kind of brute force a good run to some extent through skill and decision making. Devil rooms, super/secret rooms, choosing where to use your bombs and keys, choosing when to enter and not to enter those spiked entry/exit rooms that sometimes spawn nice stuff based on the situation... I mean, I could go on. Bombing devil beggars to increase the chance of an angel room, or playing them instead. Holding pills until the right moments, even downgrades. Tinted rocks. I mean, there's just so much going on and it's intended to be inspired by roguelikes, so some amount of "fuck you" isn't awful. I agree that there's a little too much in Afterbirth compared to Rebirth. I also think The Lost challenges are too damn hard and most people either cheese them by resetting nonstop or don't bother. People with 500+ hours in a game shouldn't find a challenge near-insurmountable, even if it's the super secret hard mode.

It definitely has its flaws, but despite all of this, it's also clearly an enjoyable, top tier game and anything with this much going on is going to be flawed. It's probably true that Edmund doesn't completely know why it's fun, or he's trolling at times.

>>2836614
They're not.

I guess that in the past the medium wasn't planned for such a wide audience (ironically though, when talking about consoles kids were considered) and as a result were offering a real challenge with a serious difficulty curve, which sort of faded away for the "everyone can play" mentality that opened up halfway during the 2000. So there's that.

The talks about games being "more of an experience" or "more directed towards graphic" aren't strong points- this was the case for the whole history of the medium. Most games have always aimed at both things, whith everything else being an exception. The shovelware, the "ironic" games (Don't Buy This: Five of the Worst Games Ever is a striking example), the graphic show-off, the casual games, everything has always been there.

Growing up with older games, I guess the people on this board aren't just attracted to most of the new games, due to a combination of easy challenge/nostalgia/shitty industry PR/being able to spot the old and tired gimmicks etc.

>>2836969
>bla bla bla art
Ok then I can give a better comparison

Why were things(such as furniture) build better in the past?
Why was planned obsolescence not a thing 20 years ago?
Why are LCD's inferior to CRT's?
Why was the economy better in the past?

Because it just was and the future will only get worse

Also
Art doesn't exist it's just a bunch of faggotry to make us think life is more important than it really is

>>2837328
>AAA titles or indie
This is the cancer that's killing the industry you moron
Kill yourself

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>>2837392
>The industry is getting killed!!!!111!!11!11!

Go cry that meme to your mommy, I don't care whether you think your lazy whiny pansy faggot ass isn't masseused by 'the industry'.
Either get a new hobby of you can't find any vidya you like in this day and age, or make em yourself.

>>2836665
>>2836814
Holy shit that was the most idiotic tautology I've seen in awhile. What a boring person you must be, never having an opinion and never offending anyone.

>>2837412
Back to >>>/v/ faggot

>>2837384
How are LCDs inferior to CRTs? CRTs are really only good if you exclusively play media that was designed for CRT TVs.

Electronics were more difficult to break in the past because they had far fewer parts. The more you miniaturize, the more fragile something gets. That's why it's difficult to break a Game Boy or a Nokia 3310, not so much because they were better made (although they were more designed for longetivity than portables of today) but more because the materials they used were less prone to breaking down. The chance of one crucial part brekaing down increases if you have more crucial parts inside your device.

For furniture, I'd argue not much has changed, except people got tired of the bulky oak look which is obviously not very fragile. Also, mass production reduces quality, but that's something you can control. A 2000 dollar couch from a proper furniture store will probably last you longer than a 50 dollar piece of shit from IKEA. Furniture wasn't built better back then, cheap furniture was shit fifty years ago as well.

The video games are/aren't art argument is stupid by the way. The line is kind of blurry today, because video games are no longer developed by small groups of people. They are a business. But you could say the same thing about movies these days, and those are considered art. Art is such a fucking vague definition that it barely even means anything to call something 'art'.

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>it's a CRT vs LCD thread

>>2836614
When devs made old games they thought about how to make the game interesting, when devs make modern games they think about how to please the customer.

>>2837127
Half of your statement was about the present. We're on /vr/.
There was quite a range of games coming from Europe, east and west, or the US; while Japan produced sprite + scrolling background consoles and games using that formula. Platformers, beat'em ups, jrpgs, all just different sound and artwork on the same base engines and mechanics. Meanwhile the whole wide simulation genre (economic, military and others) is almost entirely a western thing (occasionally Japan picked one up and put its twist on it), and so is almost anything that requires more than a controller to be playable. RTS, 4X, RPGs with features outside of fights and dialog selection, these are all western things as well. I'd rather have this diversity and experimentation, than a billion tightly controllable japanese platformers.

>japanese counterparts
Where applicable. Japan is big on platformers and jRPGs. If you look at the west for platformers, you're missing the point.

>>2837517
>how to make the game interesting
An interested player is a happy and pleased player.

>how to please the customer
So close. They think about how to please the marketing department. Pleasing the customer is at most a minor inconvenience to get there, and even then, it's not about the customer actually feeling good about the game. It's about collectathons, unlockables, impatience and social integration. It's about the abuse of psychological tricks, in order to make the customer waste more money, while costing the publisher the least money. And it's about controlling obscolescence, in order to move customers on to the next big thing, where they pay again.

>>2837524
The thing is that modern customers are mostly casuals, and those are the ones they want to please. That's completely different from old games which still had arcade roots where the devs just want to push your shit in.

Modern games have they strengths, but they are simply not challenging enough anymore to be interesting.

>>2837530
>modern customers are mostly casuals
That's simply a self-fulifilling prophecy. Modern games treat the player as a walking wallet, unable to form coherent thoughts, understand the presented game world, and make decisions within it, to form solutions. As a result, many players nowadays understand games to be simple call&response things. They are utterly confused by old games, not because they're much more difficult (they aren't), but because they demand a different mindset from the player, one of curiousity, interest, and some amount of intelligence.

>those are the ones they want to please
Again, because this is really an important point: Modern publishers do NOT want to please the player. There's no monetary value in pleasing them. They want to encourage purchases. That is all. There are currently two very powerful mechanisms in widespread use to allow that:
1) split off seemingly crucial parts of the game. That's called DLC, or add-ons. They are often part of the initial sales strategy now. It hides the actual costs, and makes people pay more. You probably agree that buying DLC does not "please" the customer. They consider it an unfortunate necessity. In this case, the triggering mechanism is a variant of the collectathon. In order for this to work, the actual game needs to have a cliffhanger, visible holes where the new content goes, or, the most expensive variant, be actually good enough, that people want to buy more.
2) impatience. This is especially prevant with mobile games. Every in game action takes time, but can be sped up, or consumes some virtual item, that can be restocked. In both cases, the player pays in order to deal with the impatience. This mechanism is especially open about the fact that the way to more money is not to please the customer, but to annoy them, and then offer a "solution".
So, yeah, you can see that pleasing the player, in any form, is not in their interest.

>>2837530
>completely different from old games which still had arcade roots where the devs just want to push your shit in
No, no, no, and so very much no. Games like SimCity will never even attempt to push your shit in. Games like Daggerfall, will not attempt to push your shit in. However, they offer plenty of opportunities for you to let yourself get your shit pushed in. That's part of the whole respect towards the player thing. Games like Monkey Island will actively prevent your shit from getting pushed in. The needlessly difficult arcade-oriented games are just a small subset of /vr/ games, and in my opinion not even the best.

However, when you're in that realm of difficult-to-challenge games, then you are indeed correct, that modern games tend to reduce or remove this difficulty. Hard difficulty is notoriously complicated to balance, to get right. You don't have that problem with low difficulty. Instead the game becomes a bit of a mildly interactive movie. A genre that triple A devs and pubs are highly familiar with, and that can be tuned perfectly to deliver satisfaction and desire in just the right doses, to make the customer pick up the next DLC, sequel, or remake

>Modern games have they strengths, but they are simply not challenging enough anymore to be interesting.
That is one very narrow view at gaming, modern or otherwise. Part of the diversity of /vr/ gaming comes from games not being a challenge, or not being a player vs. game situation. I'm not saying modern games are better than you suggest, they have plenty of issues, challenge being just one of them. I'm just suggesting you take a look at the wider picture of video games, there's more out there than trying to "beat" a game. They're not bullies.

For me the problem with modern gaming is that companies aren't willing to take the risks associated with innovation and just choose to churn out endless rehashes and cinematic soldier simulators. I'm basically talking about how fantastical games and games that put gameplay over realism are dead with only a handful of Japanese companies and Nintendo willing to do something new and interesting (hold your horses, console warriors, I stopped following the industry in 2006 but at least Splatoon was something fresh).

I unironically think that indie games are gaming's only chance because they're the only market segment that is still willing to put gameplay over muh realismus and invent new fantastical settings and forms of gameplay.

>>2837562
>I unironically think that indie games are gaming's only chance
I unironically agree, but would like to expand a bit. Indie gaming is not gaming's only chance, it's just one direction it's branching to. Triple A is not about to die, and will not go anywhere. However they stopped making games in the sense of /vr/ a long time ago, and will not go back. That kind of gaming we're looking for is simply not profitable. Indies, meanwhile, are often times enthusiasts, that do games because they love gaming. Sure, they're also interested in getting paid for it, but it's different to maximizing their income. It's a more modest, sustainable culture. So my prediction for the long term is that gaming will do a clean split, between commercial and shallow wide-appeal games, and somewhat quirky or unpolished but very varied indie games (unless indie devs fall victim to the latest fad, as it occasionally happens). To me that split is not necessarily a bad thing. It means people with the interest in gaming can follow their genre undisturbed by the triple A stuff. They're two entirely different markets, that just happen to use the same consumer-side hardware.

>>2837552
>because they demand some amount of intelligence.
So they are more difficult...

>Modern publishers do NOT want to please the player
Of course they do. If they wouldn't think about how to please the player (or better said customer) but how to make good games instead, they wouldn't release interactive movie walking simulators, but actual games. They do not think about how to make the game interesting, they think about how to fladder the customer with tons of redundant shit, for a fast shallow experience.

>>2837556
>Games like SimCity will never even attempt to push your shit in.
Of course not every game was a hardcore game back then. But overall games were much more challenging, or at least gave the player the opportunity to play it on a challenging difficulty.

>That is one very narrow view at gaming, modern or otherwise.
I'm sorry you enjoy eating casual shit, but I just feel silly when wasting my time with interactive movies. To be interesting a game has to be challenging, otherwise they are just boring gameplay-wise. If there is no challenge there is no reward.

>>2837575
>So they are more difficult...
No, you're still thinking in terms of player vs. game. Think simpler. Some amount of intelligence just means solutions are not spelt out, or branches don't happen through a dialog selection but simple actions of the player character. Just a little back there was a thread on this very board, where a fallout player was confused why all NPCs were giving him some serious shit. Turned out his character behaved like an asshole, and they simply responded. There's no increased difficulty there, just a demand towards the player to be aware of their actions, and that they have consequences. A lot of modern games shy away from that kind of "depth".

>If they wouldn't think about how to please the player (or better said customer) but how to make good games instead
That's a seriously wrong false dichotomy. It's not about pleasing the player OR making a good game. Not all good games are fucking with the player by default, and not anything that chews up the player is a good game. Also, both of your choices are altruistic, which, again, is not in the interest of the publisher. A publisher has ZERO value in a happy customer. A publisher has interest in the customer to make a purchase. It does not matter if that purchase is out of frustration, regret, happiness, blind fanboyism or any other motivation. They'll play them all, like a fiddle.

>hardcore game
Please don't go there, it reflects somewhat poorly on you, and clouds the actual discussion.

>eating casual shit
>wasting my time with interactive movies
So you're saying SimCity, Tetris, Monkey Island, A Mind Forever Voyaging, these are all casual shit interactive movies? Think for a bit, please.

>To be interesting a game has to be challenging
To YOU. This is definitely not an opinion that can be generalized.

>>2837585

you seem very intelligent and reasonable, as expected of the average 4chan poster

>>2837006

How the fuck are achievements a bad thing? You don't have to collect them all if you don't want to. They literally take away nothing from the game and just add some extra challenges for those who give a shit about completing a game 100%.

I swear, most of /vr/'so hatred of new games is downright irrational. This reminds me of a post I seen here a few weeks ago with some retard complaining about patches in modern games. As of it's a bad thing that the devs frequently fix various bugs that pop up in their games.

>>2837248
I think you're confusing the insignia and emblems of the nazi party with those of the armed forces (wehrmacht/luftwaffe/kriegsmarine). Games and film and tv might often confuse the two to entertain but they're actually quite distinct. Saying every game involving German forces from WW2 needs nazis is a little like saying every cop drama has to feature the internal affairs dept, where in reality it's a small, often despised if influential minority. Not a perfect analogy, but it'll do.

>>2837608
A massive problem with achievements is that they take away the sense of exploration and creativity. When achievements exist, they tell the player right away, these are specific actions the devs have "approved" for the player to do. Especially easter eggs and strange oddities in a game about exploration are often covered by achievements, making these things not lucky findings that you talk about with friends, but stuff you're "supposed" to find, and check off in a checklist. Achievements are tightly tied to completion percentages, which have the exact same problem. Instead of people playing a game however long they want, and looking around what they can find, or want to find, they just go down the list of achievements and collection items, mark them off, and move on. The active action of exploring the game world, even in usual ways, becomes the passive action of doing chores (the achievements) in order to satisfy something, that the player is not genuinely interested in to begin with.

>As of it's a bad thing that the devs frequently fix various bugs that pop up in their games.
That's called banana software (ripens at the customer). It is indeed a bad thing when devs offload q&a to buyers. When the shipping date becomes more important than the completeness of the product, we have a problem. The devs are not frequently fixing various bugs, they are finishing the game they sold incompletely, because they can. Said support is time limited, and sold by them as goodwill (and you're buying it), instead of as the lack of q&a, that it is.

I don't think they're necessarily better. I just don't like newer ones.

Because video games today push the "cinematic experience".

>>2837616
Dude literally no one looks at achievements before hand to see what do, it's not 2007 Xbox 360 era anymore
You are semi-right about modern practices in regards to patches but the idea of patching itself isn't morally bankrupt at all

>>2837630
now ask yourself why they do that

All my favorite games except one come from 2000-2010. Games weren't that much better then, you just played them as a child and are biased.

>>2837631
>no one looks at achievements before hand to see what do
So let's assume the happy case, and someone is genuinely interested in the game, exploring the game world, messing around. Suddently an achievement reminds them, that whatever they're doing right now, they were not exploring, they were not finding their own way. The devs expected them to be there, and do that. That's what the achievement tells. It kills all sense of wonder.

>the idea of patching itself isn't morally bankrupt at all
Few people will say otherwise. However, most of the motivation for the industry to do patches, is extremely problematic. Their primary motivations are the ability to offload q&a, and to determine end-of-life for the product (to force people onto the next iteration)

Also, since we're on /vr/, take a moment to imagine 30 years in the future. You're about to whip out an old PS4, try to boot up the games. If you're lucky, you have the old HDD still. If you're not lucky, you only have the discs. Then what? The remote servers, with all the patches, are long gone. You're stuck playing the incomplete or broken version that came with the disc.
On the computer, the situation isn't much better. Even now already, when playing moderately old Windows games, we're hunting down a handful of patches before we can even begin playing. The more widely available online patching is, the more difficult it will be when the servers disappear (and they will disappear). Long story short: there's virtually no benefit for the player, lots of benefit for the developer/publisher, and huge drawbacks for the player. The concept is simply not in our interest.

>>2837636
What's the one?

>>2837645
Kamui, 1999 game

>>2837616

Nobody is forcing you to even acknowledge the achievements. Nobody is forcing you to care that they're there. You can still play the game however you want. This is the point I was making in the first place. It's nobody's fault but your own if you feel compelled to follow the checklist and get 100% in every game you play. I know I don't. It's entirely optional and you have no good reason to complain about it other than your raging nostalgia boner.

You do have a point about the devs using patching as a way to justify selling unfinished games though. The problem with this is that you can't generalise and say it's always bad. Something like fallout 4 was released in absolutely awful condition and I'm still waiting on the patch that will fix the game breaking bug that won't let me finish the story. This is terrible. But most games aren't like that. They're usually released in good condition and patched as a way of cleaning up the little leftover faults. And you can't tell me that there aren't retro classics that were released in a similar "unfinished" condition. The snes era final fantasy games come to mind. A bug here, an exploit there, a stat that is royalty broken and does nothing. The only difference is that if they were released today, these faults would be fixed eventually.

>>2837643
>it kills all sense of wonder
Literally has never happened to me and I have never heard of it happening to anyone. The only reason people complained about 360's achievements is because they were annoying with the bloop sound and slow pop up. That's why you never hear anyone complain about steam achievements other than the obviously silly ones (beat the tutorial, kill a dev, etc). My point is it's up to the devs to incorporate achievements into the game well, achievements themselves aren't fundamentally bad

Again, you're right about the patches though, you don't have to rant I understand the ramifications of not being able to play the best version unless there's a re-release or you find an up to date backup.
But to be honest most games at launch aren't that bad except a few notable examples and for the most part in 40 years I'm pretty sure if you actually want to play the games you can just download a backup with all the patches, and keep the physical stuff for collecting only
Point is it's not that big a deal

They were made by people who cared about more than money.

>>2837643

You're totally irrational about the achievement thing. Do you think that when devs put easter eggs or little hidden challenges or collectables in retro games that they didn't expect anyone to find them? Nothing has changed in that regard. Now you just get a little thing that pops up in the corner of your screen when it happens. Once again, it's on you. If you're so finnicky and obsessive compulsive that you freak out when you see the little pop up or feel like you absolutely HAVE to get all of the little pop ups, then that is a flaw in your personality, not the game.

I can't really argue about how much it will suck when I try to play ps4 games in the future though. You're right about that, but again, not every game is an unplayable buggy piece of shit without it's patches. In fact, most of them work well. You have to judge the games on a case by case basis. Oh, and as for there being virtually no benefit to the player, the fact that they can fix bugs that otherwise would have been left in the game is the benefit, don't try to ignore that. There's also games like rocket league that update the game with new maps and game modes free of charge, but naturally you weren't going to bring that up.

>>2837657
>Nobody is forcing you to even acknowledge the achievements
The game makes them quite visible.

>Nobody is forcing you to care that they're there
They show up, they affect the game

>You can still play the game however you want
With the difference that achievements show up, telling me I did something they approve of.

>This is the point I was making in the first place
And this is the point I disagree with.

>if you feel compelled to follow the checklist and get 100% in every game you play
That was not my use case. That statement was merely representative for the way a lot of people play these games. Completion matters, to many people. Publishers know this. Instead of making engaging games, they put a completion list in there. The net effect is the same, the value for the player is lower. The mere existence of achievements affects the quality of the remainder of the game, as said game is built with the psychological effects of achievements in mind.

>you can't generalise and say it's always bad
I did not, but I hope I managed to express why the benefit for the player is marginal at best.

>most games aren't like that
It depends on the developer, and their stance towards post-release support. Bethesda is very well known for field testing their games with customers. Other devs might prefer to just do more basic and less error prone gameplay, and offer zero post-release support. So the few bugs in these games stay unfixed. And there's a lot of devs in between these extremes. Fact is though, the ability to patch at any moment, favors the Bethesda approach. MS briefly tried to fight it, by putting a 5-digit fee on patches. MS said quite clearly that the fee is a penalty, to encourage devs to do q&a before release. The outcry of the community was excessive though, blaming MS for the "hostile" stance. That stance was pro-player, really. But the patch mentality is strong.

They aren't necessarily better. I'd say that modern games are on average better than retro games, simply because real bad fuck ups don't really happen anymore. Basic game play elements which "just work" are well established. On the downside you won't have as much really good games as you had back during the 90s because no one really likes to take risks when dozens of millions of dollar are at stake. Instead they go for the lowest common denominator for maximization of profits which kills creative freedom in the process.

Cinema already is at its end stage where only really dumb block busters will generate enough to be really lucrative. Games will follow.

Once pinstripe and shareholders are involved, the path to destruction is set.

>>2837657
>you can't tell me that there aren't retro classics that were released in a similar "unfinished" condition
Correct, but it was less common. The inability to patch meant that game breaking bugs would have an eternal legacy and fuck your reputation. In a way, that made these bugs far more expensive than the 5 digits MS asked for.

>if they were released today, these faults would be fixed eventually.
Questionable. For some devs it's not worth it, if the release was too long ago, and the next iteration is scheduled for release. And again, even if these were patched, then what? How will you obtain these patches 20 years down the road?

>>2837594
And you seem very retarded and full of shit. Makes no sense talking to you.

Anyway, games back then were still games. They were aimed at a different audience. Of course there also was a lot of shit aimed at casuals like you, but there also was still a lot of stuff with good gameplay. Stuff which nowadays doesn't exist anymore, except for some rare indie games perhaps.

Back then you still had arcade games and devs focused more on the gameplay instead of graphics. Nowadays you just have cinematic movies instead.

>>2837664
>'s why you never hear anyone complain about steam achievements other than the obviously silly ones
For the record, I don't use steam, and these achievements are one of the reasons for it. I do admit though, I'm rather hostile towards achievements. Regardless, as long as I'm able to express my motivation for that hostility, that's good enough for me. I don't expect people to agree with me.

>My point is it's up to the devs to incorporate achievements into the game well
My point is that in my opinion it is not possible to incorporate them well, because I consider achievements fundamentally bad. The psychology and mentality they are based on, is, to me, in conflict with the game.

>in 40 years I'm pretty sure if you actually want to play the games you can just download a backup with all the patches
Very questionable. Consoles and Steam use strong DRM and remote servers as mandatory infrastructure, to control distribution. For example, with Steam transparently patching games, it becomes kind of difficult to get your hands on the patches, in order to archive them. And again, if any installer, or patch, relies on the availability of any remote server, the only future solution is to emulate that remote server, which can be rather difficult, as soon as crypto is involved.
Mind you, I'm not against consoles, or Steam. I have my opinion about them, and that's that. I'm strongly in favor of awareness though, of people knowing and understanding the volatility of their "possessions". If they're cool with that, that's fine.

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25KB, 234x259px

>>2837519

>japan is big on jRPGs

>>2837673
>that they didn't expect anyone to find them
They wouldn't rub it in. They just knew, that if someone finds it, they're getting a smile on their face. Good enough.

>Nothing has changed in that regard
The feedback definitely has changed.

>Now you just get a little thing that pops up in the corner of your screen when it happens
Which is one popup too many for this.

>If you're so finnicky and obsessive compulsive that you freak out when you see the little pop up or feel like you absolutely HAVE to get all of the little pop ups, then that is a flaw in your personality, not the game.
I suggest you do not put words in my mouth, or assume things. I try my best to express my motivations about these things. If you disagree with it, or don't understand it, that's fine. Insulting or attacking me over it, is not.
As I said in another post, even if the player is not focused on the collectathons (as if that's possible, when they are tied to "rewards"/unlocks, the devs are aware of them being in the game, and build the game for it. For example, in a sandbox it's not untypical that the map design leaves some spots "empty". In such cases, a common solution is to put collectathon items in there, or produce other artificial "motivations" to move the player there. It has nothing to do about being OCD. However it greatly affects the quality of the game. Instead of refining the world map to make it interesting, the developer spreads the collectathon items or achievements, and calls it a day. The player is left with a sub-par experience, damaged by achievements. The player does not have to care about them at that point, the damage is done.

>>2837701
I know it's redundant, but if I would have said just RPG, people would have given me shit due to the whole Bethesda sandbox genre. I used jRPG to distinguish the variant of RPGs with strong combat focus, dense narrative, and story branching through dialogs and cutscenes.

>>2837254
That's actually not modern, that's been law in Germany since the end of WW2. I guess you could say the company wanting to reduce development load by keeping the German market in mind while they are making a game. At least they don't try to keep islam or China in mind or something.

>>2836614
Comfy. While new games are still good they are lacking that comfiness.

I just like games. All kinds of games.

Granted, a lot of rehashed shit comes out these days, with things like Assassins Creed getting more then yearly releases, but for the most part the games are easier to get into, but a little unsatisfying or "one and done" kind of games like Until Dawn.

I think beating a game like Battletoads is a genuine achievement, but it takes such a commitment to learning and practicing until you get a playthrough that culminates everything you've been doing and win. Thats just something that modern games seem to lack.

I blame bad design decisions and checkpoints. I find something like Uncharted so bland and quite frankly boring to play. Its a cover shooter with a shitload of enemies that unless you're getting headshots are absolute damage sponges. But on the flip side theres games like Tomb Raider now that have more fun combat then the originals.

Its give and take for sure, but I just love games.

I'm playing Bloodborne again now with the Old Hunters DLC and its fun and challenging, but the last 2 games I beat were Donkey Kong Country on SNES, and Shadowgate on NES (first, blind playthrough, pretty easy, but fun). I'll probably pop in something else on SNES next, or maybe play Starfox 64, or Advance Wars 2, or maybe even Fable, or Pikmin 2.

People claim the golden age has passed, but the golden age never left. The good games are still good, and more good games are coming out every year. You can still capture the magic of when you were a kid playing games if you sit down and forget about your adult problems and concerns for an hour or two and just be immersed in the experience.

>>2837703

No, it's pretty obvious you're not thinking rationally about this. You're trying to argue, but when you're coming from an irrational place, all you're left with is an irrational argument.

Do you really think older games with large open worlds aren't basically designed the same way? If there's an empty space, they'll put shit there to make it more interesting. It might not be collectathon items, it might just be loot, but it's the same thing. Either way, you don't have to collect all this stuff, I know I never do. It's always optional and it doesn't detract from the game at all. It's just some mindless busywork for you to do in the game world if you're into that kinda thing. You can call it an artificial motivation if you want, but the whole game is an artificial thing, every motivation is an artificial motivation, it's not real. And it doesn't even matter. Once again, nothing is stopping you from just exploring the world and not caring about achievements.

And hey, I wasn't even trying to insult you. The problem IS you though. Nobody else gets this triggered by the occasional little box that shows up on the screen for all of five seconds. Acting like this is detrimental to the game is a childish overreaction. Once again, it's a little box that shows up for a few seconds. This is what you are saying is damaging modern games. The little pop up thing that you can easily miss and who's main function is to add little TOTALLY OPTIONAL challenges to the game should you choose to even care about that in the first place. Just think about that. This is like going to a pizza place and complaining that there are too many toppings available and that seeing someone eating tofu on their pizza is ruining your pizza experience. In this case, the problem would once again be you.

>>2837756
>>2837796
tl;dr

>>2837796
>You're trying to argue
I'm trying to express my position. You're free to disagree.

>they'll put shit there to make it more interesting
The difference is, that if the interest has to come from within the world, the shit is different. For an achievement you just add some random items and declare a collectathon. Without that though, you need to give the player some motivation coming from the inside.

>you don't have to collect all this stuff, I know I never do
Again, the mere existence of the collection stuff means that some map developer was lazy, and added a cheap filler mechanism, instead of actually creating a good map.

>it doesn't detract from the game at all
It just reduces the overall quality of the game.

>You can call it an artificial motivation if you want, but the whole game is an artificial thing, every motivation is an artificial motivation, it's not real
That's a uselessly meta statement. The difference is that the motivation to do something can come from within the game (say, a story moves you there, an NPC tells you to go there), from within the player (you want to explore, see what's in that white spot on your map), or it can be pushed on you from the outside (an achievement, a guide, a walkthrough)

>not caring about achievements
Their mere existence affects the game mechanics. If you can't understand that, that's your call.

>I wasn't even trying to insult you
You described a player pattern that I do not follow, and you described it in an aggressively negative way.

>triggered
If you don't want to understand the underlying concept, that's your choice, but statements like that are not helpful.

>>2837796
>this is detrimental to the game
It is not, I never claimed it was. It is a mere symptom of a game design decision, that affects the whole game. I don't give a shit what the popup looks like, or if it shows at all. The existence of the achievement list is a clear indicator that the design of the game is fucked. You're so thoroughly hung up on the popup, you're dismissing the concepts behind achievements. If you ignore them, fine, no big deal. That does not change they're collectathons. If you dismiss collectathons in games, you're dismissing core concepts of reward mechanisms that lazy publishers use to convince people they enjoyed an otherwise mediocre game. I do not support that kind of sugar coating. I don't care if I can ignore it or not. If the cake wasn't a lie, they wouldn't have to sugar coat it.

>This is what you are saying is damaging modern games
I am not.

>Just think about that
I have. It's your turn now.

>This is like going to a pizza place and complaining that there are too many toppings available
More like a bonus card that gives you a free pizza if you eat all toppings in a week, a cheap mechanism for them to get rid of the stale mushrooms, even though most of their customers don't even like mushrooms, and make you eat a pizza more per week. It does not improve the quality of their ingredients, it does not improve the taste of their pizza, it just makes them move their inventory easily. I see no need to defend, or support, such behavior

>>2837806
>>2837810

The collectathon thing is about the only bad thing anyone can say about achievements. Most of a games achievements have nothing time do with the collectathon stuff either. It's usually two or three achievements you get for picking up all the hidden packages and flying under all the bridges. It's totally tacked on and I don't like it easier. But the fact that it's tacked on proves that it doesn't harm the game at all.

You could go back to super metroid and place 100 collectable thingies throughout the game, some hidden, some in the open. It would literally not effect the gameplay in the slightest. You've just decorated the game world with little optional things to collect for those who are interested in exploring every inch of the world and collecting everything. And if you're not, just play the game as normal and pick them up if you see them. Basically, most modern open world games are like this. They've made this huge world and littered it with these totally optional collectables AFTER the fact. These games are designed around their main story missions, not the fucking disposable throwaway collectathon stuff. It boggles the mind that anyone would even think this. Have either of you played a modern open world game?

In the end of the day it just comes down to getting extremely worked up over a little pop up and collectable junk that, if you went back and removed it, you wouldn't even know it was there in the first place. At this stage you have to ask yourselves, are achievements really bad or are you just trying to find a reason to hate them because you hate modern games in general? I mean, of all the things to complain about when it comes to modern games and you pick the most fucking benign, superficial thing to focus on.

>>2837810
Actually your pizza analogy is flawed.
In the case of achievements it would be more like a pizza place offering a plaque on the wall for anyone who can beat the manager at basketball
Do you have to do it? No. Is it pointless to a lot of people? Yes.
Does it affect your pizza eating experience? Only if you're a person who gets annoyed at that kind of thing

>>2837834
>the fact that it's tacked on
I dispute this fact.

>You could go back to super metroid and place 100 collectable thingies throughout the game
This statement assumes the map itself has a quality that is independent of collectathons or achievements, and these are just added on top. That's not how development works. Instead the maps are designed in a cost efficient manner (cheap and not tested for flow) and then this stuff sprinkled in to give the player a cheap reason to follow some trail. The map quality is worse because of the collectathons and achievements.

>They've made this huge world and littered it with these totally optional collectables AFTER the fact
Wishful thinking

>These games are designed around their main story missions, not the fucking disposable throwaway collectathon stuff
The missions form the general layout of the map, as they are the most expensive to produce. The remaining white spots in between are filled with architecture and landscape that fits the mood, but is bland enough that there's no reason to actually go there. Then the collectathons and achievements are added, to add "value" to these locations.

>extremely worked up over a little pop up
>superficial thing
I give up. If anybody else is reading the thread, they can draw their own conclusion. You made up your mind about me and my statements, and refuse to think otherwise.

>>2837845
I cast my vote for the fact that you're a pretty jaded dude who can't understand that achievements are a petty thing that can easily be ignored and is literally just tacked on in most games i.e. it was probably put in after the game went gold and there's nothing to complain about.
Collectathons are something different but banjo kazooie is fun so hey let's just wrap this up by saying you're really jaded

>>2837854
>let's just wrap this up by saying you're really jaded
Or let's not. I have not put words in your mouth either. People can read and form their own opinions.

>>2837859
I read your posts and that was my opinion. I'm not putting words into your mouth if that's literally what you've been saying

>>2837859
Go to settings
Uncheck "achievement notifications"
Never pay them any mind ever again

>>2837864
ok, you're starting to piss me off. I explained why I consider achievements problematic. You dismiss all my points, which is fair. Then you summarize my statements biased, which is not fair. So, just once and as friendly as I can: get off your fucking high horse, and get it through your thick skull that you have not understand a single fucking thing I said. If you have no problem with achievements, that's fine, more power to you. I have my problems with them, and you are in no position to summarize my points, if you are unable to understand them.

>>2837859
your pretty obviously a jaded oldfag

>>2837867
Last I checked this function does not remove achivements from the games. It just exposes the games as the shallow experience that they are. And they are this shallow because of the achievements. Whether you see the notifications or not, the damage is built in.

>>2837845

It's funny how you say the collectables being tacked on after the fact is wishful thinking and then go on to describe the process of the designing the map around the main missions, filling the empty spaces with architecture and then AFTER THE FUCKING FACT randomly plopping the collectables around the place. So which one is it? Are the games designed around the throwaway collectable crap or not? You can't seem to decide.

You can argue for map quality being worse because of achievements if you want. But it's just like the patch thing all over again. You have to look at it on a case by case basis. And if the map is bad, it's not the fault of the achievements, it's the fault of the lazy devs. I mean you could take any retro game with a large open world and compare it to a new one with the same thing. Take a look at the something like daggerfall. The map is huge and empty. If the game was designed like that today it would be huge and empty with some collectables scattered around.

It is absolutely benign and superficial. You have failed to prove that games are designed around them, and even contradicted yourself on that fact. And if you can't prove that then you can't prove how they supposedly hamper the quality of the game. Oh and once again, keep in mind that these types of things only make up a small minority of most sets of achievements. It's absurd to think that they could effect a game as profoundly as you claim they do. And even if they did, your problem would be the collectables, not the achievements. Keep in mind that there are plenty of retro games with tons of useless collectable shit that you need if you wanna 100% the game, and none of them have achievements.

I hate to have to say it again, but you're not being rational at all.

>>2837882
>filling the empty spaces with architecture and then AFTER THE FUCKING FACT randomly plopping the collectables around the place
As opposed to filling these spaces with locations players want to visit. The collectathon enables to fill the blanks cheaper, and with less care. What you call "after the fact" is after the main story has been put in place, which is just the beginning of the map development. The main story is not the meat of the game, it's the tutorial. The sandbox is the meat. And it is a bit stale, because of sloppy map design

>You have to look at it on a case by case basis
And just like with patches the bias is against the player and in favor of the developer. I see no need to give them that help.

>keep in mind that these types of things only make up a small minority of most sets of achievements
Achievements are collection items, or designed that way.

>that you need if you wanna 100% the game
I consider completion percentages an equally bad mechanic.

>>2837417
But he actually likes video games. If anyone belongs there it's you for being a big ol grumpy beans.

I wouldn't say "better," but I do prefer the standards of the retro industry - all except for the stricter censorship that was enforced back then.

Back in my day, games typically weren't very long. I'm not sure if this was because of smaller budgets or just hardware limitations, but game length was either padded out by high random encounter rates and level grinding, or absurdly difficult platforming sequences. To me at least, these types of games seemed more rewarding. You had to sink a lot of time into developing your reflexes or min-maxing your party before you could advance to the final stage. When you eventually did beat the game, it was a huge accomplishment, even if all you got was a cheap congratulatory message.

Nowadays, a lot of developers want to focus on more expanded characterization and providing a cinematic experience. That's all fine and well, but I feel like gameplay only ends up being neglected in the process. Take Uncharted, for instance. Most of your environments are pretty linear and involve few, if any, puzzles; and the length of each stage is padded out by a mix of incessant firefights and cutscenes. By contrast, Tomb Raider placed a lot of emphasis on exploration, backtracking and puzzle solving, only occasionally requiring you to shoot down someone or something in your path.

That isn't to say all modern games suffer from the same problems though. I do still enjoy Elder Scrolls, Fallout and other series that don't sacrifice gameplay in favor of characterization. These types of games more or less thrust you into an open-world and let you participate in the plot as much or as little as you want, which makes them right up my alley.

>>2837891

Look it's not really worth doing this with you if you refuse to admit when you're wrong and ignore whenever I'm right. This shit is put in after everything else is done. It doesn't effect the gameplay. Sloppy map design is sloppy map design regardless of if you have collectables or not. I've established all this and you've either failed to prove me wrong or outright ignored my points. Also, you're making it pretty clear you haven't played many of these modern open world games you're complaining about when you say that the main story is the tutorial. That's just a pretty out of touch remark that is totally untrue.

And achievements themselves may be collectables, but once again, nobody is forcing you to collect them. Most of them just pop up when you've completed a significant part of the game. If you were playing chrono trigger with achievements , you'd be getting them throughout the game for beating various bosses, you'd get them for completing the different sidequests and for seeing the various endings. It wouldn't harm the game at all.

You've already done a good job of proving to everyone, despite your best efforts, that you really are just totally jaded and blinded by your own nostalgia. There is no other way you could be this bothered by such minor, auxiliary part of a video game. So go ahead and actually show us evidence of a game that was as damaged by merely having achievements as you claim, or just stop.

>>2837947
>This shit is put in after everything else is done
It's your statement against mine.

>nobody is forcing you to collect them
woosh said the point

>for seeing the various endings. It wouldn't harm the game at all
beautiful contradiction

>So go ahead and actually show us evidence of a game that was as damaged by merely having achievements as you claim
The GTA series is a pretty good example of the problem.

>>2837962

>GTA series

GTA games before 4 were free of achievements as they were released for the last generation without this kind of bullshit

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Someone here some time ago said an interesting thing: retro games are better because they are... prettier. Even with early 3d games, hardware limitations required more creative approach and design methods. Today's games try to be photorealistic, but fail to do so, and as a consequence fall into the so called uncanny valley, thus becoming creepy. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEikGKDVsCc).

Also, nostalgia ;). I loved using my imagination as a kid, after playing a game, laying in my bed I loved to visualise how, for example, exploring the pyramids in Tomb Raider 4 would really feel like, or how my farm from Harvest Moon would look like if I was there. I lived my games, not just played them.

>>2837967
>Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Achievements
There are 33 achievements with a total of 1000 points

>>2837972

??????????????

Googling your post sent me to some xboxachievements page, which seems to be relative to Xbox 360, a console that hasn't been released at the time of SA. Isn't that refers to the rerelease of last year? If so, serves the player right for buying an crippled version

>>2837969
>Today's games try to be photorealistic
I thought it was the force that moved videogame hardware.

>>2837983
fair enough. I have not had a console since I had used PS2 in 2008. When playing San Andreas on PC I just noticed the huge number of collectathons, and how much they got in the way of the game.

>>2837969
>uncanny valley

Everyone uses this phrase to sound smart, few people know what it actually means. Even fewer seem to understand that valleys do end at some point.

>>2837962

Yep there it is. All the hallmarks of a shitty counter argument. From replying you my valid points with snarky little statements that say nothing to claiming that there's a contradiction where there is obviously none (blatantly done as a bitter "comeback" for me actually calling you out on your contradiction).

And I love how you brought up gta v as your example because I was just thinking of it. It's such a good example of how collectables are a benign supplementary thing rather than providing the backbone for the game. The game is designed totally around it's main and secondary missions and the collectable stuff is just tacked on in such a non obstructive way that it's silly you'd actually find fault in it. Hell, one of the collectable things is flying under the bridges. The bridges would have obviously been there with or without the idea of collectables, making it pretty hilarious to me that you chose this game. It's just window dressing. And you can get a ton of fun out of the game without ever needing to do any of it. You wanna climb that mountain over there? Then do it. There being a collectable at the top doesn't detract from the adventure of climbing the mountain. Nor does it detract from the mountain being a place you legitimately want to climb out of curiosity and not just because you're an achievement whore.

I think we're done now. You've shown everyone what you're really like and I'd wager even the most anti modern games people here are cringing at you and wishing you weren't on the same side as them. Nice try though.

>>2837990

Did you do all the collectathons just because they were in the game, even though you hate them? If so, you may actually have some form of OCD. I played San Andreas recently and they don't get in the way at all. You can literally easily forget they even exist while you play through the missions. Go see a doctor.

>>2838000
>claiming that there's a contradiction where there is obviously none
The game by design is branching, so the choices of the player lead to an outcome that matches the player's decisions. As such, it's designed for personalized playthroughs. Collecting the endings subverts this mechanism though. It's not the player's choices that lead to a natural outcome, it's the player metagaming to artifically produce the various outcomes. I consider that so damaging to a game, it actually made me avoid playing such games.

>The bridges would have obviously been there with or without the idea of collectables
Without achievements:
<a> Dude, yesterday I started some low terrain flying. That bridge in XYZ, that was quite tricky
<b> hey, I like that, let's go for that

With achievements
<a> Flew under the bridges yet? I got 5/20
<b> nah, can't be bothered

The achievement robs the player of the exploration.

>There being a collectable at the top doesn't detract from the adventure of climbing the mountain
To you, it doesn't. To me, it does. Only you can't understand that.

>>2837519
nono you're missing my point , which is simple - current games are worse because of western led industry rather than japanese b/c of game design philosophy differences between the two. that's pretty much it

>>2838009
>Did you do all the collectathons just because they were in the game, even though you hate them?
Who said anything about doing them? Los Santos was littered with graffittis, San Fiero was littered with glowing orbs. I forgot what Las Venturas had. Plus a billion and one bubbles for the various side missions to own shops. The whole map is full of stuff I don't care about, that adds nothing to the game

>Go see a doctor
Go fuck yourself with a rusty rake, shithead. Then off yourself and get the hell off this planet.
Fucking hate you assholes having to turn any random exchange into an attack. Go eat some lead, it'll make this world a better place.

>>2838021

Have you ever even played chrono trigger? The usual way of watching the alternative endings is after starting new game plus and beating the last boss prematurely at different points in the story. There's nothing wrong with this and I didn't contradict myself.

But yeah, it's becoming clear to me that this is just some irrational pet peeve to you. It's nobody's fault but your own that you can't enjoy flying under the bridge or climbing the mountain just because the game acknowledges you doing it. This is something that you really have to understand before trying to push your ideas on other people. This isn't bad game design, this is you throwing a little tantrum over something so small and trivial that it doesn't matter for no good reason. I suggest next time that you at least have enough self awareness to realise this and preface any comments about achievements with the fact that have an irrational hatred of them.

You need to be aware that the vast vast majority of people are not triggered by this as much as you are and you have no actual logical argument for I being bad. I wouldn't have even got involved in this argument if you had just admitted that it's one of those things that you just dislike for no reason. Maybe keep that in mind.

>>2838027

You're clearly mentally I'll if that's how you saw the game. Because that's not at all what it's like. And the businesses aren't anything to do with the collectables either. You're making it sound like you can't drive down a street without being bombarded with all this flashy in your face shallow content. In reality, it's barely noticeable. They're usually hidden away off the beaten path and could not be any less invasive if they tried.

I'm not having a go at you. Judging from everything you've posted in this thread so far, it's not unreasonable to assume that you have some kind of mental disorder. Maybe OCD, maybe autism to some extent. I'm not blaming you for this, it's not your fault after all. But your description of the collectables in San Andreas makes it sound like you have significant trouble filtering out small trivial details from the big picture.

they are not

>>2838418
This

>>2838418
Come on now, let the neckbeards pretend they are.

>>2836614
idk if they're better. they're different. they each have pros and cons

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This thread sucks.
My eyes hurt...

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>>2838781
Yeah, this thread sucks and I'm pretty sure it's gay also.

>Opinions: the Threadening

Hidden

Their's to much text in this thread.

>>2837150

>muh 8-bit
>kids off my lawn
>my prostate hurts

>>2836614
Smaller teams
Not as bloated and corporate
Unafraid to experiment

>>2836614
Games now try to cater to people who don't enjoy video games. Games back then were made for people who enjoy video games.

>>2838832
that's not true, you go to the shmup general and it's obvious these gays hate videogames

>>2837219
Mario Bros 3 was the best selling unbundled game (18 millions) for over a decade until the PS2 GTA.

>>2837519
I live in South America.
There, most people used to pirate everything, and the most popular gaming mediums were the ones easy to pirate.
So, it is very common for people to have grown up playing NES games on famiclones, and DOS games.
I am pretty sure the Sid Meier games are far more well known here than The Legend of Zelda games.

I think the west is great at turn based strategy games like the Sid Meier or Paradox games, real time strategy like Total War, simulators, point and click games and computer rpgs, but I find the modern obsession of western developers with storytelling quite harmful.
Last years reviewers prefered 2 very mediocre western medieval fantasy action adventure/action rpgs games (Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age 2) over an action game with great combat like Bayonetta 2.
This year they prefered The Witcher 3 over Bloodbourne and Metal Gear Solid 5.
2 years ago they went crazy over The Last of US.

It seems like what people want is a videogame that reminds them of an HBO show like Game of Thrones or an HBO show about Zombies.

>>2838880
I completely agree with you on modern western development being uninspired shit. The original exchange was specifically about "japanese game design prevalence in older games".

Don't think for a second that the current market is about what people want. The current market is almost entirely driven by hype and brand reputation, in order to allow for publishers to produce reliable sales. People largely don't even know that games can exist outside of the dreck that's currently offered.

>>2838021
Its just a way of extending the longevity of the game for more people. Most people don't think like that, they only want to try flying under every bridge if they actually get something for it.

I get what you mean. It's fun reaching things the devs never meant for you to reach or try. At the same time, the world in GTA V was extremely expansive. If there were no collectibles people would complain it's empty. People like to explore but they don't want to walk everywhere just because they can, they want a reward.

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They're not. They just feel that way because we play the best retro games from every system and every year. We don't remember all the mediocre games that came out in 1995. Hell, we barely remember the ones from 2014.

>>2838880
>This year they prefered The Witcher 3 over Dork Souls with Rifles and Metal Gear Unfinished 5

Fixed for you

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-No internet connection needed

-No account bullshit

-No installation needed

-Starts instantly

-Free or cheap memory devices because no hard drive

-Better chance of finding a game that isn't broken because it couldn't be patched later

-No DLC

-No headaches brought on by wireless controllers

-Guaranteed physical media

-Better chance of difference between the same game on a different platform

>>2837050
not anyother anon, but i would like to add

in a sense, it can be easier and cheaper to make a game, but i have the impression that its always the kind that requires the lastgen top of the line platforms/PCs that run the AAA, and end up looking worse than 2d games from 10y ago.

but also like you said, an AAA doesnt get made with less than a zillion in budget, so the new barrier isnt publishing, but for small to medium studios it is the financing, but its even worse since a good first instalment is taken off the original developers hand, and the game series is made into just another generic shit.

10 years ago a couple of midle aged oldfags with some savings got together and made Savage, then Savage2 launching it online only with no middleman.

a few years before them, in 2001, five recent graduates got together to make an RTS not much behind Tiberian Sun or Red Alert, with no budget at all, Outlive, a very professional looking game.

since then, we havent seen any AAA or even "two and half AAa's" done by small studios without the IP rights held by conglomerates, who would rather use the free word of mouth that a famed tittle holds than to let the original developers continue to make what they have already proven to be capable

>>2839118
>Most people don't think like that, they only want to try flying under every bridge if they actually get something for it.
It's something games taught them. Look at /vr/ and you'll find a lot of games where curiousity is the only driving force, and there's no explicit reward.

>If there were no collectibles people would complain it's empty
That is precisely the damage that collectathons and achievements have done. See, they don't suddently make the world less empty. They just give a meta-reason to go through that empty world. The correct solution is to give in-game reasons to go there. Put points of interest there, place other points of interest in a way, that passing these "empty" places is useful. And especially important for GTA: stop making empty worlds. GTA is such an extreme example, where the "world" is not a world, it's just a huge prop for the story. Nothing in that "world" works, or is alive. It's all just cardboard cutouts of buildings, roads, cars that disappear around the corner, people without a life. No consequences, no interaction, there is nothing in that "world". Collectathons are cheap cologne covering the stench of the dead world

>People like to explore
No, not anymore. Virtually no games encourage explorations. They provide markers, and map arrows and "quests" and all that junk. People don't explore, they just follow orders, and games give them these orders.

>they don't want to walk everywhere just because they can
Right, that's a bad motivation.

>they want a reward
Discovery of unexpected things, interaction with things in unexpected ways, these are the rewards. A percentage going up is the worst kind of reward you can make in a game. It's just stats, an excel spreadsheet.


I like your comment, really, because it highlights so well what vast damage these collectathons and achievements have done. Damage to game designs on such a core level, that we not only accept these empty prop worlds, we think it's the only way to make a game

it's like every single post itt is retarded

>>2839198
>but i have the impression that its always the kind that requires the lastgen top of the line platforms/PCs that run the AAA, and end up looking worse than 2d games from 10y ago.
A very simple reason for that is the art department. The engines available are extremely versatile and powerful. Hell, you can get Unreal and Crytek for virtually no upfront money. These are competitive high end engines. A lot of indie development is done by "coders" though, people that love to tinker with source code, write their own tools and games. These people tend to not be jack of all trades. The artwork is lackluster, the sound bleepy cheap, the game mechanics wooden. I don't blame these people. They're following their passion. The "better" way though is to find likeminded people, that specialize in these other fields, and get them on board. Stuff like Torchlight or Grimrock, or even Banished, is done on a tiny budget, and just had the fortunate situation of skilled people being involved.

Setting up a development environment, programming in pure assembly and finally pressing a single run of cartridges is a tremendous risk. You had to polish that shit down to the last pixel if you wanted to compete. If you noticed a major bug after release, you had to had made a considerable profit to send in a revision.
I wonder how much money Rare realistically lost because of Donkey Kong Country 2.

>>2839198
As for the financing: AAA is almost by definition the big monolithic studios. AAA is not the end game, it's not something game development wants to, or should achieve. AAA is a mutation. Extremely simple games in terms of gameplay, with tons of non-interactive and expensive filler (prop worlds, motion capturing, strong story focus).

You mentioned two examples of small studios producing quality games. I'd not call these AAA games. They're independent, and did their games on their own, just with more quality than usual found.

I kind of suspect we're just in disagreement about the concept of AAA. To me it does not mean quality, at all. In fact, I consider AAA games sub-par. AAA just means major studios, extremely high (excessive) production costs, heavy IP-based marketing, and ultimately games with shallow gameplay, classic no-risk "cinematic experience". That stuff is very distinct from games by independent developers, that happen to be extremely well made. To me, that is still independent.
It's just one of the few cases where the true capabilities of independents, and the low cost entry into the market become visible. The vast majority of independents don't reach that level of organisation and specialization, and end up looking like you described, visually inconsistent, sloppy, and often badly programmed, with computationally expensive scripting. That's not the default state of indie development. That's just the result of the extremely low barrier into the market. Even a casual interest gives you all the tools to develop a game. It'll be shit, but available. If you're a startup with 50k and two talented friends, you can whip out some crazy creative and beautiful games, that can compete with the best, and even outperform them, easily.

>>2837041
What makes art... art? As an artist I can tell you that art is about getting people to feel things.
Blue Danube can move a man to tears just as Dali inspires confusion and awe and humor and horror.
Think about stuff like Ghouls and Ghosts-- it's designed to delight while frustrating the player, which is why people see it as this mythic ritual to pass down the ages today.
Mario makes you feel stuff. You get an emotional investment in pixels.
That's 110% art.

>>2839198
One thing I'd like to mention is, that polished indie games tend to have more focus than AAA. You won't find many Uncharteds in the indie development scene, but look for example at Grimrock, and you see extremely focused core gameplay, no open world, no filler, but what is there, is super polished. That, to me, is a good example of modern game dev. Small studio, reasonable budget, focus on the game. I know I'm a bit in the minority with that, but I kind of dislike "broad" games. Games that claim they let you do everything. It is very common for these games to simply be shallow. The "everything" you can do, is just variants of a single thing, and neither of these variants has any depth to be useful. As anon mentioned in another comment, you can walk everywhere in GTA. But there's no reason to. That's, to me, an example of a bad direction. If you look at /vr/ games, you can notice a lot of them are focused. They do one thing, and do it very well. Part of that is inherent platform limitations, but part of that is also for the devs to understand that a good game is focused, on its ruleset and abilities. Part of the low budget of indie productions leads to this focus. They don't have the money, or time, or manpower to put "everything" into their games, so they don't. They just polish what core mechanics they have and want. The result is games that are much more /vr/ in nature, even if they may look very different.

>>2839274
>As an artist
Shitposting on 4chan isn't an art form, anon.

where did these people come from?

>>2837384
Assembly lines and Automation made it so very very few people were needed to make things, but in order to keep capitalism going, and as many people working as possible, we build disposable shit so that we can create artificial demand.
Don't be a rube.

>>2836614
More features.

>>2839276
>implying

>>2839118
> Put points of interest there, place other points of interest in a way, that passing these "empty" places is useful.

Like...Putting things there for people to collect?

The thing is that with today's technology , the area that you're 'supposed' to explore got a lot larger, while those secret sweet spots you can find for yourself didn't really increase in number. And that's pretty normal, since the areas you're not 'supposed' to explore lie at the fringes of the world you create - perimeter increases less rapidly than volume. Basic maths.

It's not really the damage these collectathons have done, either - it's a flaw in human psychology. We -like- seeing numbers go up. It drives us, because every time it happens the pleasure center in our brain gets activated ever so slightly. Why do you think games like WoW or even Candy Crush are so popular?

>>2839294
>Like...Putting things there for people to collect?
No, as these are not points of interest. Collectibles are disconnected from the world they're in.

>the area that you're 'supposed' to explore got a lot larger
Size has never been a problem, see Daggerfall or Elite

>since the areas you're not 'supposed' to explore lie at the fringes of the world you create
What? You could have a hideout behind a downtown building, what gives you the idea that everything needs to be at the perimeter? Go look at a modern "open sandbox", really. You'll find main routes, key locations and blank spaces. The blank spaces are away from key locations, and not on the main routes. Quite simple. Note that they can be any size. In GTA, basically any block of buildings not directly involved in the story is blank, as it's just a prop of a building, that does not do anything. People drive past it, without even looking. At best they look at the minimap, to see where they want to go, or follow the few main routes. That is not a problem of world size, it's a problem of world design.

>it's a flaw in human psychology
I blame the devs for exploiting it, because that's simpler and more effective than actually producing quality. It's cheap drugs, and I call them out for that. The collectathon is a symptom of this exploit, and an indicator of the lack of design. That people are unable to even think outside of collectathons nowadays is a matter of conditioning.

>Why do you think games like WoW or even Candy Crush are so popular?
Have you checked the thread you're in? The very subject is that people in this thread are tired of stuff like WoW or CC, and would rather go back to old games, that didn't do these exploits.

>>2836647

Older games appealed to everyone, there were normal games suited for kids, teenagers and there were R rated games back in those days.

>>2837102

Nope, then buying a car is an art cause your "buying a car"

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

What they doing now is pulling videogames back to childish levels and making them back to toys for some odd reason. Maybe they're scared that no one will procreate like Japan if they aim video games for the mature audience or something I dunno why they censoring and banning shit like no tommorrow.

>>2839482
>What they doing now is pulling videogames back to childish levels and making them back to toys for some odd reason
Some, maybe. You got plenty of excessive violence, even in games as recent as Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creed. The push towards the toys is an economic one. Parents have insane amounts of purchasing power, and a very capable beggar to put that purchasing power to use. If you can use a million bucks to make a gore focused shooter, you or may not have a success, depending on how your marketing goes, and if you can keep the bugs under control until people bought the game (preorders, exclusive launch editions). Meanwhile with a toy game, you get the instant purchase from the parents, and a lot of follow ups for the 10-15 bucks DLC sets, regardless of the actual quality of the game. It's a far more "guaranteed" sale.

>I dunno why they censoring and banning shit like no tommorrow
two different and opposing forces at work. On one hand you have the developers, that want to be all grown up and mature, which means that they'll include seemingly endless amounts of violence and other such things. And on the other hand you have the censors, that, to this day, have not understood that video games are aimed at a wide audience. In particular, the bigger the market becomes, the more they think it's aimed at "more children". That's where the censorship happens.

You do understand that the industry stopped long ago to actually develop games, right? Their purpose now is to move units. Their material doesn't have to be entertaining, or engaging, or even good. It just needs to be purpose built to lead to more sales.

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>>2836614
Because they're actual games driven primarily by gameplay and aren't 'cinematic experiences'. They're also more challenging. In the NES and SNES eras there was no guarantee that you'd beat a game you'd buy. Kids bought games and they accepted the fact hat they might not be able to complete them and that was fine. When you beat a game back then it was actually a legit accomplishment as most people weren't able to and they felt more rewarding as a result. Nowadays however if somebody can't beat a game he will be quick to blame the game itself rather than his own lack of skill and dismiss it as shit. That's the culture the participation trophy generation raised on regen health and general brain dead game design has wrought upon us. Most games are now standardised streamlined experiences which you can expect to beat in 5 to 10 hours tops. Games of the past required actual mastery to beat them and would take far longer than a mere 5 hours (with absolutely no guarantee that you'd be able to do it). Neo /v/ and its ilk dismisses this game mastery as 'artificial difficulty'. They hate for example the concept of having limited lives/continues and having to go through a game from start to finish without using them all up in order to beat the game. They're just too shitty at a hobby they supposedly 'love' to be able to do that.

Today's games are shit because when the PS3 was released, developers started doing games with "Hero boxes." The character on the box has that certain pose with a gun or sword. All of these games are somewhat the same. They appeal to the identity of the player, saying "I am that guy." The box hero games are dark and allow the player to break the rules of society in a virtual world. They can shoot people, run around, drive into things etc. This is the most childish form of entertainment possible. Its for people who do not get along with others and have not accepted the rules of society. It can be a fun fantasy or a good game, but I believe its just fodder for people who have a childish rule-breaking complex. In contrast, most games on the Wii:U are about playing & building with others. These are games adults want to play with kids.

A lot of the japanese developers have trashed their own culturual style to emulate the hero-on-the box genre. Even Metal Gear Solid has become this thing. That's why I barely play Sony systems anymore. PS2 was the last great system which had every genre of game.

PS4 and Xbox1 are literally for people with the mind of a 4 year old.

>>2839249

I wonder, for all your talk about how modern open world games have such horrible design, if you can name a single retro game with a large nonlinear world that couldn't be faulted in the same way.

You seem to be obsessed with some ideal game where you only go anywhere or do anything out of sheer curiosity and adventurous spirit. I don't think it's real. Any large open retro world I can think of works in pretty much the same way. You explore the world in hopes of being rewarded. It's the basic psychology of game design, and not even just open world adventures. And hey, you can still have an honest curiousity about what might be in the next room regardless of the fact that you're really hoping it'll be some kind of reward. This goes for both old and new games.

>>2839673
>You explore the world in hopes of being rewarded
In-game rewards. Percentages and collectathons are not in-game.

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AAA games from top studios are multi-million budget development projects nowadays with profit potential to exceed Hollywood films. They need to appeal to the lowest common denominator and sell as much as possible. This means that not only will the game be dumbed down, developers will also be less willing to take risks and try new things. They'd rather stick to a formula that works so they can guarantee sales. In the past development costs for top industry games weren't nearly as high so devs were willing to try new things and thus games were a lot more varied. Also the 'retro timeline' according to /vr/ spans multiple generations up to the year 2000. So we saw games transition from 2D to 3D, and moving between these two planes we saw much innovation and new games made.

Not to mention that games in the past were pretty much by-nerds-for-nerds. Pic related is the team that made Doom; that's all it took to make one of the greatest games ever made. Each of these guys had their own distinct input to the game and they knew exactly what they wanted to do. They weren't being pressured by anybody to do something. Sure they wanted to make money but they also wanted to make a great fucking game. As a result the game had fucking soul. Compare that to now, where teams for games can consist of hundreds of developers, each a corporate office working bee, just doing what he's been told to do, rehashing the game over and over again ad infinitum. It's just another dead-end job where you're working 9 to 5 for a paycheck, completely unlike the early days where devs were actually having fun doing what they were doing, shirking off work with LAN parties and all-nighters in between.

>>2836614
less focus on shiny graphics
more focus on interesting gameplay, or at least unique gimmicks

>>2839729
Yet at the same time I bet you think all independent games are shit now too, right?

>>2839673
Not even lying, you just described Minecraft.

Modern devs try too hard.

>>2840072
elaborate

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There's more of them to choose from. I'll be generous and work within the confines of the board- "retro" games have been around nearly 30 years. That makes quote "modern games" half as old, so theres no way there can be more good games within 15 years as opposed to 30.

>>2840072
Nope. They don't try at all.

Most modern games are made out of set pieces which proved to be successful.

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>>2840074
It like, smacks of effort.

>>2840079
games, regardless of quality, have not been produced at a constant rate. Often rates in technology are exponential. There's a good chance there have been more new games in 2015 alone than there have been in all of the 1980s